Plagiarism row: K.R. Meera sends legal notice to Haritha Savithri

Writer K.R. Meera has sent a legal notice to author Haritha Savithri, stating that the allegations raised against her by Ms.

Savithri linked to her novel Kalachi were made to defame her in public space and among readers.In a social media post on Saturday (June 27, 2026), Ms. Meera said she would have no other option but to approach the court seeking justice if Ms.

Savithri failed to initiate steps as mentioned in the legal notice. She was referring to allegations of similarities pointed out by Ms. Savithri between the plots of her novel Zin and Ms.

Meera’s Kalachi.The debate initially began on social media after Ms. Savithri referred to literary theft and cover-ups made by those involved in it without mentioning anybody’s name in her Facebook post in May this year.

It snowballed into a controversy after a few netizens wondered whether she was mentioning about similarities in the plots of her work and Ms. Meera’s Kalachi as both novels featured women travelling into conflict-hit regions in search of their lovers.Zin was published in 2022, and it received the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for the best novel (2023), while Kalachi was published in 2025.

Ms. Meera had earlier asked whether a novel that began publication in November 2020 derived its idea from a book published in 2022 or did the 2022 book derived ideas from a novel already published in 2020. Ms.

Savithri had responded, saying that there were fundamental similarities between the books, and that they could have been avoided. Published - June 27, 2026 08:21 pm IST Read Comments Copy link Email Facebook Twitter Telegram LinkedIn WhatsApp Reddit READ LATER SEE ALL Remove